How the Web Created ‘Graggle Simpson’

There’s an abundance of proof that Homer Simpson is, was, and at all times has been a personality in The Simpsons. There’s footage, after all – of Homer going about his days of “d’ohs” and doughnuts – however there are additionally toys, dusty VHS tapes, and online game appearances, to not point out Homer’s eternal existence in common consciousness. 

Equally, there’s an abundance of proof that Graggle Simpson is, was, and at all times has been a personality in The Simpsons. There’s footage, after all. There are additionally toys, dusty VHS tapes, and online game appearances. And Graggle is beloved. In current weeks, the lizard-like yellow fella has been popping up in viral tweets and TikToks – persons are lamenting that the character has disappeared from the present, and are campaigning for his return with hashtags resembling #BringBackGraggleSimspon. 

There’s only one snag within the Grag: He isn’t, wasn’t, and by no means has been a personality in The Simpsons; he hasn’t appeared as soon as in all 728 episodes. The place did Graggle Simpson actually come from? Why is he presently in all places? And the way is there a lot proof that he exists? 

Graggle Simpson was cast within the fires of the imageboard 2chan method again in October 2015. An nameless consumer added the character to a screenshot of The Simpsons, and there he stayed till January 2021. Then, one other nameless consumer – this time on 4chan – posted lore for the stretched-out blob. He known as him “Yellow Matt” and stated he was a “self-insert character” from Simpsons creator Matt Groening. 

That’s when a YouTuber often known as Simian Jimmy stumbled upon the submit. He migrated the picture over to Twitter, modified the character’s identify to “Gumbly” and claimed that the character was an new addition to The Simpsons – concrete proof the present had jumped the shark. “I don’t know why Gumbly was the primary identify that got here to my head, however I may need been subconsciously connecting the character design to Gumby since they’re each simply bare, skinny, single-coloured dudes,” Iowa resident Simian Jimmy says now. His submit blew up, and folks started Photoshopping Gumbly into increasingly more Simpsons scenes. 

“I didn’t put a lot time or effort into it – every time I have a look at it I really feel that it’s apparent that it’s faux, however I’ve seen my image all around the web now,” says a 21-year-old Florida resident who used Paint 3D so as to add Gumbly to a scene from Season 13 of The Simpsons. In response to Simian Jimmy’s tweet, he shared the image from his Twitter account @RayDibb and finally earned over 4,000 likes. From there, Gumbly then rapidly unfold to YouTube, the place Aaron Murphy, a 21-year-old creator from California who runs the channel Nightbane Video games, inserted him into the 2003 online game The Simpsons: Hit & Run. 

“The Graggle meme is sort of like a recreation – try to faux it as a lot as you may,” Murphy says; his Hit & Run video earned over 40,000 views. Murphy thinks Graggle is common due to our cultural fascination with misplaced media and creepypasta tales. “The concept The Simpsons initially featured a personality named Graggle, however he was quickly fully wiped off the face of the Earth to the purpose that nobody remembers him, is actually humorous and thought-provoking,” he says. 

However that – Simian Jimmy, @RayDibb, and Murphy thought – was that. A great, fast, clear joke shared with web strangers. The top. For over a yr, Gumbly rested deep within the quiet corners of the web. Then alongside got here Fb. 

This Might, Gumbly was resurrected and rechristened as “Graggle” by a 26-year-old Australian who goes by the Fb username Yeliab Ressap. After looking the web and seeing an image of an alleged piece of idea artwork for “Yellow Matt”, Yeliab Ressap posted an image of the character with the caption: “NEW MANDELA EFFECT JUST DROPPED – THIS UNIVERSE DOESN’T HAVE GRAGGLE SIMPSON.” (A “Mandela impact” is a false reminiscence shared by a number of folks.) 

“I simply needed a silly phrase and that was the very first thing that got here to thoughts,” the Fb consumer says of arising with the identify “Graggle” (he hadn’t truly heard that the character was nicknamed Gumbly when he got here up with the identify). Inside per week, his submit had a thousand shares. Then it spiralled. “Just a few folks have accused me of being a authorities agent due to how rapidly and quickly it took off, however right here I’m saying I’m not a authorities agent. It’s simply the character of the web.” 

Yeliab Ressap’s submit was screenshotted and shared on Instagram and Twitter – on the latter web site, it earned over 70,000 likes. When Jackson (AKA @CalmDownLevelUp), a 25-year-old from Seattle noticed this tweet, he knew it was his time to shine. He’d first seen Gumbly in 2021, and had thought the meme was so humorous that, “I made a folder in my cellphone known as ‘Proof of Gumbly’.” When he noticed Yeliab Ressap’s submit, it “had been like a yr since I’d seen him. And I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, Gumbly!’ That is my probability to answer with all my pictures.” 

One among Jackson’s tweets, that includes 4 of the Photoshopped pictures he’d collected, earned over 3,500 likes on the finish of Might. He began pretending that he genuinely believed Graggle was an actual Simpsons character. “I simply assume it’s humorous that folks get offended, it’s only a humorous factor to gaslight folks with,” Jackson says. “You hear a lot within the information about faux information and Russian misinformation… It’s a really satirical tackle that stuff being within the information on a regular basis.” On the finish of our name, Jackson confesses: “I used to be attempting to think about lies to inform you, I used to be going to try to gaslight you, however I couldn’t consider something.” 

Yeliab Ressap’s submit modified the fortunes of Graggle née Gumbly, however TikTok is the app that gave him wings. Folks took the photographs that Jackson had collected – in addition to @RayDibb’s photoshop – and started creating video montages. A video of “recovered footage” of the character has 418,000 views; a rip of Murphy’s Hit & Run footage has virtually one million. As Graggle turns into increasingly more mainstream, and as proof of his existence mounts, some folks appear to be genuinely falling for the gag. One TikToker took it upon themselves to debunk his existence (although after all they could simply be including one other meta-layer to the joke). 

Although Graggle – in a single type or one other – is now seven years outdated, nobody I communicate with thinks he’s a dying meme. “I truly assume it’s nonetheless very underground,” Jackson says. Yeliab Ressap thinks the simplicity of Graggle is essential: “It permits folks to take it, make it their very own, and run with it.” “I really feel like he’ll be round so long as The Simpsons are round,” Murphy says. “Who is aware of, possibly he’ll come again in 2023 with a brand new identify – one thing like Grunky.”  

@ameliargh